ABSTRACT
Burleigh had expressly reserved to the Justices of Middlesex their general County jurisdiction over the City and Borough of Westminster. Down to the Rebellion these Justices seem to have refrained, as a rule, from encroaching on the sphere assigned to the Court of Burgesses. The constitutional history of Westminster appears to have been very inadequately investigated by the numerous authors who have dealt with its more picturesque features. From a communication of the High Steward in 1726, it appears that every Westminster citizen had still to pay “head money”—perhaps as “essoin pence”—formerly a revenue of the Manorial authorities, but devoted to charitable purposes; and that this was collected and distributed by the Burgesses. A special statutory body had at last to be established by Acts of 1761–1765, entitled the Westminster Paving Commissioners, with rating and borrowing powers more nearly adequate to what turned out to be the most costly Municipal enterprise of the eighteenth century.
